Considerations On The Currency And Banking System Of The United States By Albert Gallatin Philadelphia 1831 8vo PDF Download

Excerpt from Considerations on the Currency and Banking System of the United States The framers of the Constitution of the United States were deeply impressed with the still fresh recollection of the baneful effects of a paper money currency, on the property and on the moral feeling of the community. It was accordingly provided by our National Charter, that no state should coin money, emit bills of credit, make any thing but gold and silver coin a tender in payment of debts, or pass any law impairing the obligation of contracts; and the power to coin money and to regulate the value thereof, and of foreign coin, was, by the same instrument, vested exclusively in Congress. As this body has no authority to make any thing whatever a tender in payment of private debts, it necessarily follows, that nothing but gold and silver coin can be made a legal tender for that purpose, and that Congress cannot authorize the payment, in any species of paper currency, of any other debts but those due to the United States, or such debts of the United States as may, by special contract, be made payable in such paper. All the engagements previously contracted at home, by the United States, were expressed in Spanish dollars; all the moneys of account of the several states, were estimated and payable in that coin; there might be some uncertainty as to the precise weight of pure silver which it contained; and the assays made at the time, may not, for want of proper means, have had all the accuracy of which that process is susceptible. But they were made in good faith; and the Act of Congress of the year 1791, which declared that the dollar of the United States should contain 3711/4 grains of pure silver, has irrevocably fixed that quantity as the equivalent of a dollar of account, and as the permanent standard of value, according to which all contracts must be performed. The relative legal value of gold and foreign coins to that standard, may from time to time be varied provided that neither shall be so overrated, as to authorize the payment of a debt with an amount in such coin of a less actual value, than that of the silver to which it may be made to correspond. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.